Fast food advertisements not visually truthful to us

At some point in our life, we realize what you order at a fast food place is never what you see on billboards or tv ads.

The photo manipulation of fast food to make it look so luxurious, colorful and nutritional vs the sloppy, bland and half sized Big Mac you get is just not right.

In general, any type of photo nowadays can have so much photoshopping done to it, yet fast food photography does not rely on Photoshop as much as using non edible products to get the perfect picture.

To make such photographs impeccable, here are some tricks photographers use:

Using eye-liner to give grill marks

Deodorant covered vegetables to give them a shine

Placing vegetable shortening for ice cream to prevent from melting

Spraying hairspray to make dry ingredients look moist

Using motor oil in place of a sauce

Imagine putting all these non edible products on your food.

Try lovin’ that.

Kitchen Manager Andy Tam from Taste in Plymouth, CA said, “making such false advertisements and knowing the potential of what food could really look like is a shame, especially being in the food industry myself, I know there are natural ways to make food appealing.”

All of the editing and manipulation makes one think, what is the food industry trying to do to our brains.

Can one believe anything they see?

Aaron Cutler, current Culinary Arts major at Delta said, “I understand the need for a perfect picture, however not showing the real final product is disappointing and question what are we really getting.”

Next time you order fast food, look up a billboard or tv ad and compare the two, side-by-side to see the difference first hand.

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The Collegian is the student newspaper of San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, Calif. The paper is published six times a semester in the fall and spring.

As a First Amendment newspaper we pride ourselves on a commitment to the students of Delta College while maintaining independence. We reinvigorate the credo that the newspaper speaks for the students, checks abuses of power and stands vigilant in the protection of democracy and free speech.